Page 53 of Friends with Benefits

“—I’m thinking…fuck, Evelyn.”

Evie drops her phone and jumps to her feet, unsure if she’s more mortified by the fact that her best friend is speaking directly to her extremely exposed ass or that the fabric that is (barely) covering said ass has tiny corgis printed on it. She reaches for the nearest pair of sweatpants tossed haphazardly on her bedroom floor. “Sorry!”

“I… the door was open.”

“I know. My bad. Today sucked, Theodore. I failed to figure out what Chicken Little’s footsteps sound like and Pep sent us a kink box and it is sohotin here—” Evie cuts off her babbling, tying the drawstring on her cotton joggers. “I’m sorry that pants were not a priority.”

Theo’s eyebrows rise. “A what box?”

Evie waves at the package.

Pulls out a silk mask, a whip… and a butt plug.

“Fuck,” Theo hisses, his eyebrows knitting together as she drops the butt plug in his palm. “How am I ever going to make eye contact with Pep again?”

She twirls a strand of anal beads around her index finger. “She’s relentless. But also an icon?”

“Does she really think we would… use this stuff?”

We.

We.

We.

“Are you kink-shaming my grandmother, Theodore?”

“Evelyn.”

“Oh. You’re a butt plug virgin.”

“Evelyn.”

“What about this?”

Evie holds a stroker up to one eye like it’s a telescope and she’s having way too much fun with this. Flustering Theo. She’s been open to a whole spectrum of sexual experiences. Cannot deny that light bondage of the handcuff variety is such a turn-on. Will absolutely deny that the revelation that she’s more experienced with toys is notnota turn-on. Theo is probably a traditionalist when it comes to fucking. Hands. Mouth. Tongue.

She drops the toy back into the box.

Swallows hard.

Now Theo’s the one who looks amused. “Are you finished?”

Nope.

Evie nods and returns everything to the box, closing it up, and after a debate about the storage location (“They’re your sex toys, too, Theodore!”), she folds and stores the box on the top shelf of her closet. She stands on her tiptoes, pushing the box as far out of reach as she can, pushing thedesirethat it stirred within her as far away as possible.

Until Theo says, so casual. “So. Corgis?”

Her skin is on fire. Cheeks, neck, chest. “What? They’re adorable.”

Theo nods slowly. Evie’s eyes refuse to meet his, instead focusing on the jut of his chin, the faintest hint of stubble along his jaw, what it would feel like to brush her fingers across—

She blinks.

When her eyes open they’re locked with his dilated pupils behind round tortoiseshell frames, pulled up by a magnetic force she can’t resist.

Theo says, “They are.”

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